How to Run a Re-Engagement Campaign

A re-engagement campaign differs from a winback flow because it is a one-off of email. A winback flow, on the other hand, is triggered by the Placed Order event and is an email (or series of emails) sent when a certain amount of time has passed after the purchase. A re-engagement campaign should only be a single email that is sent infrequently to those who are not going to receive a win-back flow -- once a year is a good rule of thumb.

Split Your Unengaged Subscribers into 2 Segments

First, you'll want to split your unengaged subscribers into segments: those who have made a purchase and those who have not made a purchase. This will allow you to easily determine which group is more valuable once you send your campaign.

Unengaged Subscribers - Purchased

This segment should contain people who:

Haven't opened an email in the past 120 days

Are on your newsletter list and were added more than 60 days ago

Have had an email bounce less than 5 times over all time

Are not suppressed

Have placed an order at least once over all time

Unengaged Subscribers - Never Purchased

Your second segment should have exactly the same conditions as the first, except they should have never placed an order:

Haven't opened an email in the past 120 days

Are on your newsletter list and were added more than 60 days ago

Have had an email bounce less than 5 times over all time

Are not suppressed

Have placed an order zero times over all time

How to Message These Subscribers

We recommend using plain text and being as personal as you can in the email by using the {{ first_name }} tag and a from address like "Marissa from Klaviyo." Include content about any new products that have been released since they've become inactive and consider offering a discount to entice them to buy.

You will want to include prominent unsubscribe and manage preferences links, in case subscribers want to update their settings rather than unsubscribe completely. You may also want to consider segmenting your newsletter by email frequency to avoid bombarding subscribers with emails and causing them to become inactive in the first place.

Sending the Campaign

When you're ready to send out your campaign(s), you may want to use the batch sending option. This will distribute deliveries over a longer span of time, which can be a safer option if you're sending to a large group of unengaged people.

What to Do Once You've Run Your Re-Engagement Campaign

After you've sent your 2 campaigns, you'll want to monitor the results closely to see if this is something you would like to repeat annually. If you see an open rate above 10%, you can consider the campaign successful. It's possible that one segment will have a higher open rate than the other, in which case you may only want to email one segment for future re-engagement campaigns.

You may also want to suppress (or remove completely) anyone who does not respond to these emails. You can do this by creating and exporting a segment of those who received either email but did not open them (see below).